Who would have ever thought that the United States could face a coup attempt against its duly elected President? But for all intents and purposes that’s what’s going down. It’s a derivative of an old-fashioned third-world banana republic mob-style coup that is brewing against Donald Trump.

It matters not that there is a lack of substance to the charges of Russian collusion. That a charge of treason has been bandied about by Democrat Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine to justify impeachment of Trump shows both madness and utter ignorance of the Constitutional definition of treason. It also raises the commonsense question of how a leader of the opposition party who lost thinks he can he can resurrect credibility by applying the extreme charge of treason to a man whose “America First” patriotism is so incontestable that even cynics don’t doubt it.

The real issue is that the party of the left -- the Democratic Party -- lost the presidential election and its members lost their minds. The defeat of their seasoned, if corrupt, liberal heir apparent to an inexperienced politically incorrect Republican candidate was shocking and unacceptable, and has triggered new levels of outrage and intolerance. Combined with the Democrats’ losing streak at the state and national ballot box every single election -- for a grand total of 1,042 state and federal seats lost by Democrats to Republicans -- during the Obama years, it’s all just too much to take. And unwilling to accept the outcome of the people’s choice of Trump and fearing the loss of power and control, many Democrats and their base in the mainstream and social media have become desperate -- cranking up hatred and mob-behavior to obstruct and discredit President Trump and to peel off weak Republicans from supporting him.

An emotional mob psychology has been unleashed and is out to get Donald Trump and intimidate and divide his party. The locus of this mob is not among the unwashed masses in the rural areas, but rather it is among the leftist elites who inhabit urban America -- people who shape the culture through the knowledge, information and entertainment industry -- the base of the Democratic Party.  

We are in the midst of a wave of insanity and destructiveness that has tens of millions shaking their heads in disbelief. Mob behavior today is almost exclusively a phenomenon of the left. While there are so-called right-wing fringe extremist groups, they are small and have neither a base in the Republican Party nor favor from the media. There are simply no conservative or Republican mass movement analogs to Black Lives Matter, Animal Liberation Front (ALF), Women’s March, Peoples Climate Movement, Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Earth First! and countless others.  

Group think and mob behavior are not rational phenomena, and it appears causality is rooted in the atomized disposition of people with unmet relational and spiritual needs. When young people are subject to continuous overt and subliminal propaganda in the schools and culture and also fail to experience genuine and transcendent meaning found in traditional institutions such as church, synagogue, neighborhood, and family, many are vulnerable to “surrogate religions” -- secular progressive group substitutes that purport to pursue justice, solve grievances, save the world and otherwise provide relational and transcendent meaning.

In the extreme, Mark 5: 2-9 presents us with insight into the dark side of spiritual possession and mob behavior. Here Christ encounters a demon-possessed, angry, violent man who could not be subdued or shackled. When Christ asked the possessed what his name was, he responded, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” When Christ drove those evil spirits out and redirected them to a heard of swine, the pigs rushed like a mob, headlong over a cliff to their death.

The cradle of Western democracy was ancient Greece, and Athens in particular. Four hundred years before Christ, Athenian-style direct democracy gave a platform to demagogues to sway mobs -- thousands packed into amphitheaters -- to support irrational causes, such as voting to kill all the adult males on a single island. The popular court in Athens also decided to fine and ostracize successful, rich, and popular public figures such as Pericles and Aristides. It also presided over the proceedings to execute the philosopher Socrates.

The Romans recognized the problems with Greek-style direct democracy and the dangers of mob rule. Their contribution to making democracy work was found in their constitution of a republic that redirected the people’s voice and power to a tripartite governing authority that consisted of two consuls in the executive, a senate and assembly in the legislative and magistrates who served a judiciary function. The example of the Roman Republic shaped enlightenment thinkers in England and France, such as Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, and Diderot. But perhaps more than any other figures, it was the overwhelmingly Christian founders, notably the Federalists, in the American colonies who got it right. The record longevity of the U.S. Constitution is a testament to their wisdom.

There were various philosophic differences between the key Founding Fathers -- John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison -- but they favored a republican form of limited government over any derivative of direct democracy. The requirements that every state have two senators irrespective of population and an Electoral College to decide Presidential elections were designed and implemented to curb the power of the densely populated states and urban areas, which were more prone to corruption, demagoguery and dependency.

Jefferson believed that virtuous political rule was more likely to be found in a rural and agricultural society. He wrote: “When [governments] get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.” Today we hear of red states and blue states, but that’s a misnomer. A close look at the national electoral map shows that the rural areas of the U.S. are almost all red and the blue voting districts are cities and urban areas. It seems that Jefferson’s forecast 220 years ago has been borne out, as cities suffer from more corrupt and insolvent governments than do states and rural areas.  

Political correctness (PC), which has its origin and continuing sustenance amongst liberals and the Democratic Party and its base in mainstream and social media, the universities, and Hollywood, has robbed the soul of America -- leaving the nation weaker, humorless, and more divided than ever. In addition, America’s overbearing federal government has in fact created a swamp in the nation’s capital, corrupting both political parties, the bureaucracies, and even the supposedly independent Federal Reserve -- which enabled the federal government to recklessly double its indebtedness in a record eight years under Obama with hardly a cautionary peep in the Fed’s frequent meetings, the minutes of which are dutifully recorded for the public.

The task of turning around America is gargantuan. It’s time to get past the unique, direct and sometimes abrasive style of President Trump, and unite around his positives, which are substantial: a tireless worker, commonsense, goal orientation, and a confident negotiator. Unlike most politicians who prefer appeasement to confrontation, President Trump is direct and bold. Unpredictable with adversaries, he is consistently and refreshingly patriotic.

The coup against President Trump will not succeed in removing him from office. But if the opposition and obstructionism continue to delay nominee confirmations and confound the legislative agenda and Trump initiatives the people voted for, the coup efforts will have effectively accomplished their objective.  

The Republican sweep of four special election victories in 2017 may have provided false confidence to the Republican establishment, but outside the Beltway there is little solace. It’s time for Republicans serving in Washington to get over obsession with reelection, get out of denial that business as usual is acceptable, and recognize that we are engaged in spiritual and political warfare to save the country. And since the enemy takes no prisoners, legislative failure is not an option.

It’s time for Republicans to unite, defend, and support their President. At such a time, they can’t go wrong in following the counsel of Apostle Paul, who told both the Romans and the people of Corinth, “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another… I appeal to you… that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”

Scott Powell, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, thanks Doc Garnett for his review. Reach him at scottp@discovery.org.